Newsfrom Japan
Tokyo, June 1 (Jiji Press)–Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa said Saturday that he has made a “painful decision” to cancel his plan to become the first non-astronaut individual to orbit the moon.
The cancellation is due to unclear prospects of spacecraft launch, the 48-year-old entrepreneur explained on X, formerly Twitter.
Maezawa, together with artists from various countries, was slated to travel around the moon on a large spacecraft of Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or Space X, and return to Earth in about a week.
He signed a contract for the trip in 2018, when the vehicle, called Starship, was scheduled to be launched by the end of 2023. However, the development of the spacecraft has seen difficulties.
“I cannot make my life plan (under the current circumstances), and I also feel sorry to keep other crews I invited waiting any longer,” Maezawa wrote.
[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]